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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Terrified of regressive modern feminism

1000 replies

TRHR · 10/05/2021 13:14

By saying "you can't be a woman if you're born without a vagina, and if you're born with a vagina you must be a woman" you're making reproductive organs the defining and most important characteristic of being a woman. This attitude was used to oppress women for centuries. We were baby makers only, and hormonal and chromosomal differences were used to say that we were too "emotional " for public life, education and jobs. Only over the last 100 or so years have our minds and emotions been rightfully recognised as just as important as our vaginas. GC is now going back to seeing our sex organs as our most important identifier and as a feminist and a young woman this really scares me. It is playing right into the traditional patriarchy, is sexist, regressive and oppressive. The fact its being done in the name of 'feminism ' terrifies me. The recent historic implications of insisting women are defined by their bodies scares me. These views are still held by conservative (often religion based) communities and we've all seen how easy it is for these groups to gain power - feminists shouldn't be helping them justify their attitudes or behaviour.

If you've seen/read the Handmaid's Tale you'll know what attitudes I'm afraid of. GCs ironically tell TRAs they are 'handmaids' when actually it is their attitude that has historically led to the oppression that Attwood (who is trans inclusive) bases her books on.

Gender is not a set of stereotypes - it's an identity based on culture, history, society , psychology and often (but not always) sex. It's far more freeing than "vagina = woman" and takes account of each of us as individuals not just bodies, which is what feminism up until now has fought for.
As an example, many trans women don't wear "girly " clothes, they identify as "masculine/butch" lesbians. Many trans men still like wearing make up and dresses e.g. in drag.
Many people would say the world shouldn't be defined as 'male / female' at all. But it always has done, that won't be changed in our lifetime. So seen as that is our social structure, it's oppressive to police how people choose to move through life under this structure based on bodies.
Thanks for reading this far and if I get one extra person to consider the harm that GC is doing, especially to young women of child bearing age, it'll be worth the condescension and vitriol that this post will inevitably receive.

OP posts:
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babbaloushka · 10/05/2021 14:58

@sleepyhead sorry, I didn't RTT so it looks like I copied your post. Great minds and all that.

Fernlake · 10/05/2021 15:00

Gender is not a set of stereotypes - it's an identity based on culture, history, society , psychology and often (but not always) sex

Op, If you do nothing else, make a list, yourself, of what it is in culture, history society, etc, that determines what you call gender identity.

It's my sincere belief that you might find it a little revealing.

Minezatea · 10/05/2021 15:00

The best sort of oppression is convincing people to oppress themselves - internalised oppression. It terrifies me to see young people being unable to reflect on the meaning of what they are saying and the implications for all young women.

WeeBisom · 10/05/2021 15:00

OP, I used to teach advanced feminist philosophy so I hope I can address some of your concerns. You think that saying 'anyone born with a vagina must be a woman' reduces and defines women to their reproductive organs, and has been the source of women's oppression for centuries. But what you are referring to is biological determinism, which is the view that if you are a woman you are ONLY suited to making babies, being emotional etc. In other words, women have a feminine personality which is natural and stems from their biology. Their attitude was 'anyone with a vagina must act and be a certain way', but this is rejected by radical feminists. Radical feminists, rather, believe that women are female but this fact tells us absolutely nothing about what women are like. Women are not naturally suited to just serving men, and having babies, and staying at home. Women can do anything they like - they have no natural role.

in saying that woman are females, this is a definition of the concept woman but is not a reduction. A reduction would be to say women are female and that is the only relevant and interesting characteristic about them. But this is patently false. Women are far more than their bodies - they are people. Nor does defining women this way make it the most important characteristic of being a woman - only a sexist would think like that. A disabled person is disabled if they have a condition which affects the day to day functioning of their life, but it doesn't follow that a disabled person is 'nothing but' their disability, or being disabled is the most 'important' characteristic.

When you say gender is not a set of stereotypes but an identity, radical feminists would say this explanation has it entirely backwards and is actually quite dangerous. Gender is a fake social caste imposed on men and women in order to create a sex-based hierarchy with men on the top and women on the bottom. There is nothing natural about it, and it is a form of dominance and control over women. To say that gender is a natural identity is to naturalise the system of gender, which is to naturalise male oppression of women.

I don't know what you mean when you say it's far more 'freeing' to define women by their individual personality. If you define the very concept of women by each individual personality then there can be no feminism. Feminism is a class based movement for the interests of a class called 'women'. If they are all disparate individuals, what is holding the class together? Women have nothing in common but their personalities, which is to say they have nothing in common at all. Your definition of the female gender doesn't tell me anything what these individuals all have in common, such that they could form a civil rights movement - they all share an identity based on culture, history, society, psychology and sex? What does that mean?
Also, we aren't denying that women have personalities just because they are female. That idea is so absurd that a moment's thought would have made you think 'hang on, that's not right.' The benefit in defining women as females is that it becomes easy to know who feminism is for. It's for all female people. And this makes sense, because female people, women, are oppressed on the basis of their sex.

As for the bit about 'women don't have to wear girly clothes'. Yes, we know. Radical feminists aren't biological determinists. We don't think women have to wear anything or look a certain way. All we deny is that males can be women. Males are quite welcome, however, to dress and look anyway they please. This helps to break down stereotypes of what men should look like.

I would actually counter your thesis with this. It isn't harmful to define women as female, because feminists battle hard to counter the deterministic and sexist view that females have to look or be a certain way because of nature. It is actually useful to define women as female, because it means we can have a coherent social justice movement centred around the needs of female people (and female people are still oppressed on the basis of their biology and bodies, so feminism is still needed.)

It is your theory that is dangerous because it has lost sight of women as an oppressed class, and has lost sight of patriarchal oppression. "Woman' becomes an individualistic concept, each 'woman' having nothing in common with the next because being a woman is..what? A matter of personality? And males can now join the club if they have sufficiently feminine personalities as well. But what is the point of grouping such people together? If 'woman' is nothing but an identity which is as unique as every single person, how do you as a feminist movement tackle issues like menstrual huts, female genital mutiliation, sex based violence, the lack of medical research into female bodies? It seems to me you can't have a feminist movement in any meaningful sense, and so you can't get rid of sexism. And on your theory, what is patriarchy? Are women oppressed on the basis of their gender identity? But why wouldn't' women just identify out of this gender identity if it got them into so much trouble? And why did men bother oppressing women on the basis of gender identity at all in the first place? What is there even to oppress, when every person's identity is so disparate and different? It just doesn't seem like there's much of a feminist theory there - just pure individualism.

Swimminglanes · 10/05/2021 15:01

Still no reply to my question on what are the harms to a women of childbearing age.
People will think she has a vagina? She might find that a useful assumption, especially for the delivery part. Is it harmful to assume a baby is likely to be coming out of your vag? I doubt it.

“These views (that women also have bodies?) are still held by conservative (often religion based) communities and we've all seen how easy it is for these groups to gain power.”

Funnily enough they just did quite well in Hartlepool and local elections too. I think the NE remains unterrified of people knowing where to find a vagina.

sleepyhead · 10/05/2021 15:02

[quote babbaloushka]@sleepyhead sorry, I didn't RTT so it looks like I copied your post. Great minds and all that.[/quote]
Grin

CharlieParley · 10/05/2021 15:04

You have most thoroughly misunderstood the position of women's rights campaigners opposing self-identification of legal sex. Assuming that you wish to engage with us, I'll address a few of your points.

By saying "you can't be a woman if you're born without a vagina, and if you're born with a vagina you must be a woman" you're making reproductive organs the defining and most important characteristic of being a woman.

It's a good thing then that we are neither saying that nor believe it.

A woman is an adult human female. A female human is someone who has a female body with a reproductive system geared towards producing large gametes (ova). Humans with this type of reproductive system are grouped together as the female sex class. Membership of this class does not depend on the reproductive system of a female-bodied individual being complete or fully functional. But it does depend on meeting a very small number of defining characteristics. In both biology and UK law, these characteristics are gonads, genitals and chromosomes. Typically, anyone who is born with two out of three of these characteristics (ovaries, vulva, XX-chromosomes) will be classified as female.

This attitude was used to oppress women for centuries. We were baby makers only, and hormonal and chromosomal differences were used to say that we were too "emotional " for public life, education and jobs.

We have been oppressed on the basis of our sex for rather longer than a few centuries. And it had nothing to do with having a vagina, which is not after all, readily visible, but with the reproductive capacity those born with a vulva are assumed to have.

Being born female has material consequences for how we are treated by society, how we are raised, how we are expected to behave and present ourselves and how we may live our lives.

From its very beginnings, feminism has criticised and opposed these expectations and limitations imposed upon female people on the basis of their sex. Women's rights campaigners who oppose self-identification are no different.

The attitude that has oppressed us isn't the one that says "you can't be a woman if you're born without a vagina, and if you're born with a vagina you must be a woman". If that was true, we could have ended our oppression thousands of years ago. But our oppression isn't definitional, it doesn't arise from the fact that we are called women if we have a vulva. It arises from the fact that only those born with a vulva can bear offspring. Whatever they are named.

You cannot make this go away by including some female-bodied and male-bodied people in the opposite sex class. But you can obscure the root of our oppression and you can prevent it from being addressed by rendering sex invisible.

In other words, insisting that the oppressed class within a system that disadvantages people because of their (assumed and real) reproductive capacity to bear offspring cannot be defined and recognised as a class on the basis of having this capacity is a move that benefits only the oppressor class. If we cannot name the root cause of this oppression, we cannot address it.

Everything that happens to women and girls to keep them oppressed in patriarchal systems arises from this one, basic fact of our species: We are the sex class that bears offspring.

We are saying that this basic fact does not justify the way we are treated in patriarchal societies. We are saying that this basic fact of our biology does not define what other things we can do and be and wear and like. Female people can like and wear and do all kinds of things that male people do. Not just things our society has coded as feminine.

This is why we oppose the doctrine of gender identity which posits that your membership of a sex class depends on your behaviour or how you feel.

To put it another way, take doing the dishes and mowing the lawn

A conservative may say:
It's the woman's job to cook dinner.
It's the man's job to mow the lawn.

A proponent of gender identity puts forward this view:
Whoever cooks dinner is the woman.
Whoever mows the lawn is the man.

A feminist would say:
Both men and women can do either of those jobs. Sex is irrelevant here.

Gender is not a set of stereotypes - it's an identity based on culture, history, society , psychology and often (but not always) sex.

Across time and space, the sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes imposed on either sex may differ but they shape culture, history and society. What you call gender identity is something that I understand as a personality based on an individual's preference for or rejection of any number and combination of the stereotypes that their society and culture imposes on either sex.

The definition of gender as the straitjacket that society tries to force us in from birth, so that we comply with the sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes our culture associates with our sex is a feminist definition. Part of that definition is that because of the hierarchical nature of these sex stereotypes and sex role stereotypes which typically frames masculine-coded ones in a positive way and feminine-coded ones in a positive way, we also understand that the female sex class suffers more from gender than the male sex class. Hence we say that sex is the root of our oppression and gender is the tool used to oppress us. And that is true whether we comply or defy - most of the stereotypes associated with the female sex class serve to hold us back and gender-non-conformity in women is punished in many if not most societies.

It's far more freeing than "vagina = woman" and takes account of each of us as individuals not just bodies, which is what feminism up until now has fought for.

May I suggest you extend your feminist reading? Various strands of feminism focus on women as a class, and it is liberal feminism which emphasises the individual. Liberal feminism does not aim to abolish the patriarchy but instead seeks to help each individual woman navigate the patriarchal system she lives in to her best advantage. It does not focus on class-based analysis of the issues and work towards broad, systemic change, but it tinkers around the edges instead. There is a lot of focus on symptoms not root causes of women and girls being disadvantaged.

That's not to say that liberal feminists embracing the doctrine of gender identity didn't fight for and achieve some improvements for women and girls. They did. Liberal feminists chose to work with and within the system and that can be an effective tactic on any issue.

But now, they are actively opposing the aims of radical feminists, who want to liberate all females from patriarchal oppression, not help some women make the best of it.

peadarm · 10/05/2021 15:05

"Gender is not a set of stereotypes - it's an identity based on culture, history, society , psychology and often (but not always) sex."

This is confusing: surely it's precisely the 'identity' that is the set of stereotypes? The most basic principle of being 'gender critical' is that gender stereotypes are harmful and should be dismantled. To 'identify' as a woman with a man's body requires the reassembly (and often exaggeration) of those stereotypes.

Not all stereotypes tend to be of interest when male-bodied people identify/live as a woman. For example, the stereotype that woman = mother = the person responsible for childcare and housework, tends to be eschewed in living/identifying as a woman in favour of stereotypes of supposed 'femininity'.

IAmFleshIAmBone · 10/05/2021 15:10

Biology IS the the most important defining characteristic of being female. What else should it be? How skillfully one can apply eyeshadow? You've got it backwards, it's the people who champion gender ideology that are the dangerous ones. You know gender is just stereotypes right?

TheWeeDonkey · 10/05/2021 15:13

Great post WeeBisom I sometimes struggle to articulate my thoughts, especially when there are so many people on the thread who are making excellent points but you've said very clearly how I feel.

MimiDaisy11 · 10/05/2021 15:14

I'm sorry but you haven't convinced me at all.

Obviously, people of groups who traditionally and are currently repressed should be seen as full people. No one here is saying otherwise. But "Woman" does not define my personality or entire being which is what you're trying to put on it. That's where the confusion lies.

This part:

Gender is not a set of stereotypes - it's an identity based on culture, history, society , psychology and often (but not always) sex. It's far more freeing than "vagina = woman" and takes account of each of us as individuals not just bodies, which is what feminism up until now has fought for

I don't understand at all. What're the psychological differences between men and women? What's freeing about them? And likewise the same question for culture, history, society etc? Why are they relevant to me as a woman and why do they free me? These all read like restraints.

As a simple example, culturally romantic novels are marketed and largely read by women. I hate them but the culture we're living in says these are for women. Yet you're saying my "identity" as a woman should be connected to culture. How so and how differently to men?

YellowPenPinkPen · 10/05/2021 15:18

Ah @WeeBisom - mic drop there.

Is it some sort of 'right of passage' for posters such as the OP to plop and run?

WarriorN · 10/05/2021 15:34

I'm alway truly thankful to ploppers who start fresh threads with a wealth of insightful and clever analysis, reaffirming my position and I'm sure helping others to learn more about Why Sex Matters.

WarriorN · 10/05/2021 15:35

(From all the clever responders.)

Multi tasking and it's not going well.

cakedays · 10/05/2021 15:37

Gender is not a set of stereotypes - it's an identity based on culture, history, society , psychology and often (but not always) sex

You do understand that “identity” is itself a historically-specific and fluid term, right? It doesn’t mean the same thing as it did 50 or 100 years ago.

Fundamentally, “identities” are sets of narratives we tell about ourselves, both socially and individually. Cultural identity is not the same as psychological identity, and national identity is not the same as personal identity (some are group identities where we are taking about shared narratives; some are inward “identities” where we use the term to talk precisely about our inward sense of self that is different from, say, a social or class identity.) We talk about national identity, for example, but you would probably agree that this outward sense of cultural storytelling is not the same as the idea of identity that we use to mean the sense of deep personal selfhood that makes you a unique person. All different sorts of overlapping social and personal identities have long been understood as (sometimes competing) narratives - stories we tell ourselves about belonging and history and who we are. We also understand, in practice, that those narratives are produced through a complex set of beliefs, actions and performances that are learned from and with others.

The tendency - very recent in fact - to treat “identity” as a sacred cow, a kind of immutable Platonic essence of the self, is a deeply religiose and contradictory one - not least because it selects or discards some favoured modes of “identity” rather than others.

Would you be contemptuous of a Deep South Trumpite claiming that Americanness was an essential transcendent part of his/her “identity”? You’d probably answer that that is daft - that national identity is a kind of fiction created by belief in certain kinds of historical and cultural stories, and reinforced by group social pressures. So tell me, what makes “gender identity” any different?

Is it because it seems to have that material basis in sex? Or something else? Are our eternal souls gendered? What makes gender different from nationhood?

Floisme · 10/05/2021 15:39

Oh I thought this was going to be all about regressive 3rd wave feminism.

Coyoacan · 10/05/2021 15:42

I totally agree, OP. It is also totally regressive for people to identify according their nationality and race. I mean everytime I say I'm Irish I am reinforcing all the stereotypes about drunken paddies.

allmywhat · 10/05/2021 15:43

Gender is not a set of stereotypes - it's an identity based on culture, history, society , psychology and often (but not always) sex. It's far more freeing than "vagina = woman"

What utter bollocks. My identity is located in my history, my culture, my network of relationships, the way I spend my time, and my personality, not my "gender". Women are allowed to have personalities, you know.

Reducing people's entire identity and humanity down to their "gender" is the most regressive thing imaginable, especially given how extraordinarily sexist and specifically misogynistic people who define themselves on the basis of "gender identity" tend to be.

Try this:
Astrology is not a set of stereotypes - it's an identity based on culture, history, society , psychology and often (but not always) date of birth. It's far more freeing than "human body=human"

Or maybe this (trigger warning - neenaw neenaw neenaw- Harry Potter reference)
Hogwarts Houses are not a set of stereotypes - it's an identity based on culture, history, society , psychology and often (but not always) Buzzfeed quizzes. It's far more freeing than being a muggle.

Some of us, not raised by Internet wolves, don't define ourselves by our Hogwarts House, or our star sign, or our gender. You should try it.

IAmFleshIAmBone · 10/05/2021 15:44

Oh I thought this was going to be all about regressive 3rd wave feminism.

Me too! I thought it was going to be about Liberal feminism, and the horrors of porn, prostitution and gender ideology.

Disappointed.

FlyPassed · 10/05/2021 15:53

Brava, @WeeBisom! PLEASE write that post as a new thread, there are many mumnsetters who would really benefit from your analysis

PurgatoryOfPotholes · 10/05/2021 15:53

Gender is not a set of stereotypes - it's an identity based on culture, history, society , psychology and often (but not always) sex. It's far more freeing than "vagina = woman" and takes account of each of us as individuals not just bodies, which is what feminism up until now has fought for

Let me ask you a question. Does the man in management who proudly declares that he"can't see colour"do anything positive to end racial discrimination with that statement?

I say he doesn't. He congratulates himself on how wonderful he is, and wends his way through life, never noticing that he is more likely to chuck CVs in the bin if they have a name at the top that suggests the applicant isn't white. He never notices that he never promotes people who aren't white. He never notices that the only department that does employ Asian people in a ratio typical of the town's population demographics is the cleaning one.

Now I ask, what happens when someone says "I can't see sex and I just treat people as people"?

CharlieParley · 10/05/2021 15:56

Correction to my post above:

frames masculine-coded ones in a positive way and feminine-coded ones in a negative way,

Sophoclesthefox · 10/05/2021 15:57

Applause to cakedays, charlieparley and weebisom for posts that are way, way better than OP merits. Chapeau!

OP, congratulations on being the catalyst to some really amazing posts, you should think about a career that involves getting people to open up, like counselling or being Oprah or something, you have a real knack Grin

OvaHere · 10/05/2021 15:58

I'm confused OP as to how you can make the following two statements...

By saying "you can't be a woman if you're born without a vagina, and if you're born with a vagina you must be a woman" you're making reproductive organs the defining and most important characteristic of being a woman

Many people would say the world shouldn't be defined as 'male / female' at all.

...then finish off on this note.

especially to young women of child bearing age

It's almost like subconsciously you do know what a woman is. That having female sex organs and female reproductive abilities (fully functional or not) is at the root of what sets us apart from anyone born male and is what underpins female oppression.

EdgeOfACoin · 10/05/2021 16:01

Gender is not a set of stereotypes - it's an identity based on culture, history, society , psychology and often (but not always) sex.

So if I were to go back 1000 years to a tribal village in a completely different part of the world and encounter an adult human female, would either of us be able to describe ourselves as 'woman'? We would not share the same history, nor the same culture, nor the same society, nor the same psychology.

Which history, society, culture etc. forms the basis of what a woman is? Is there anything that would unite us as women apart from biology (which, in your view, doesn't count?)

Objectively, how could we tell which one of us is a woman - if either of us?

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